Reckless by Craig Lucas. Directed by Mark Brokaw. Set design by Allen Moyer. Costume design by Michael Krass. Lighting design by Christopher Akerlind. Original music and sound design by David Van Tieghem. Cast: Olga Merediz, Debra Monk, Michael O'Keefe, Mary-Louise Parker, Rosie Perez, Thomas Sadoski, Jeremy Shamos.Theatre: Manhattan Theatre Club at the Biltmore Theatre, 261 West 47th Street between Broadway and 8th AvenueRunning time: 2 hours, including one 15 minute intermission.Schedule:Limited engagement through December 12. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 8 PM, Wednesday and Saturday at 2 PM and 8 PM, Sunday at 2 PM.Audience: May be inappropriate for 12 and under. Children under the age of 4 are not permitted in the the theatre.Ticket prices: Orchestra $79, Mezzanine/Premier Circle $79 and $53.Wednesday Matinees (Beginning 10/20/04) Orchestra $69, Mezzanine/Premier Circle $69 and $53.Tickets:Telecharge

Again and again in Reckless, one question keeps popping up: Can you ever
really know anyone? A better question for the people involved with the
show's new Broadway production might be: Do any of you really know
Reckless?

The Manhattan Theatre Club-Second Stage Theatre co-production of Craig
Lucas's play, which just opened at the Biltmore, is an erratic hodge-podge
of unfocused glitter and gaiety. And though the production, under the
direction of Mark Brokaw, is not unattractive, Lucas's wily meditation on
the tenuous nature of identity is itself here experiencing its own
debilitating identity crisis.

Reckless is a slickly warm, yet zany dark comedy, often lying just on the
borders of the mundane. Characters and situations seem to exist as if in a
waking dream, just a heartbeat away from dissolving into nothingness and
making you wonder whether they ever really existed at all. And from the
first scene, set on Christmas Eve, when the "terminally happy" Rachael
(Mary-Louise Parker) must leave her old life behind when she learns that her
husband Tom (Thomas Sadoski) has taken out a contract on her life, the
show's unreal nature is in high gear.

But as this production follows Rachel on her journey - which encompasses a
number of years, and several different states - it seems as if it, too, is
never completely sure what may be taken at face value. New characters like
the friendly Lloyd (Michael O'Keefe) or his mute paraplegic girlfriend Pooty
(Rosie Perez) float on and off, making only minor impressions before
vanishing again. As the story unfolds and each character's various lies and
obfuscations are exposed, it becomes more and more clear that the
production's forced ethereal quirkiness is doing the actors - and the
audience - few favors.

Perhaps most affected is Parker, so effective in her last (Tony-winning)
Broadway assignment as the scattered Catherine in David Auburn's Proof, yet
here never able to pinpoint the personality of a woman lost in a very
different way. Parker's Rachel is cursed with a dizzying sense of sameness
throughout most of the play, a quality dispelled only in the final scene,
when the similarities between the woman Rachel was and the woman she
currently is work for the character instead of against her. This results in
a truly touching denouement.

That this scene is also one of the few unfettered by drastic diversions from
reality is not coincidental. Much of the rest of the time, Lucas makes his
points by way of gaudy symbolism (Rachel, Lloyd, and Pooty participate in an
unsettling game show titled Your Mother or Your Wife) or slapdash scene
plotting (Rachel, on the skids at one point, is dragged onto an unexpectedly
violent talk show). And though Lucas is always subtly building up to the
play's final, moving moments, it's a dangerous tightrope walk.

Brokaw's directorial eye is keen enough to prevent a fall, but doesn't
provide many legitimate thrills along the way. The play moves, if at times
sluggishly, and wants for a strong jolt of either outright earnestness or
side-splitting comic vision, though it receives neither. Brokaw's work is
adequate, but never as blithely creative as a play this unrealistic
requires. Allen Moyer's set pieces often convey stark (if discordant)
realism, and neither Christopher Akerlind's lights nor Michael Krass's
costumes conjure up much magic of their own.

Genuine enchantment comes from only Debra Monk, who plays six different
doctors that counsel Rachel on her emotional, spiritual, and geographic
travels. Her characters are innately kind, but also professional and
downright weird, and Monk traverses the borders between their qualities so
well that she appears to be the only person onstage truly at ease with the
unusual nature of the material.

Perez has suppressed most of her spicy individuality as Pooty, and never
renders her a complete (or very interesting) person; her one-line rantings
as a homeless woman late in the show prove infinitely more entertaining and
characterful. Sadoski's manic frustration almost always reads as overacting
while he's portraying Tom, though he turns in a remarkably honest and
understated performance as another character later. Olga Merediz as a
brusque office worker and Jeremy Shamos in a number of wacky ensemble roles
get their fair share of laughs.

Those laughs, while welcome, are few and far between in this oversized and
empty production; so are moments of honest reflection and emotional
engagement. These problems might be easily correctable if not for the lack
of people, on stage and off, capable of bringing out the tenability in this
dreamlike show. Only Monk implicitly understands the style, and while she's
wonderful in everything she does here, her roles aren't large enough to make
a significant difference.

At the very least, this production of Reckless is professional and never
nightmarish. But it also doesn't take sufficient steps to ensure that
audience members taking it in won't be lulled into their own dream world, if
one of a very different - and unwanted - kind.